Recently I was compelled by what in hindsight could only be called morbid curiosity to visit Mystic Wicks, One of the larger pagan themed message boards on the internet. Some years ago I was a member there. They have always had just one rule there, respect. They claimed this meant that everyone should respect one another's opinions beliefs and their right to them, which was in theory a wonderful rule. But in reality things were not quite that utopian. Don't get me wrong, it all started out well enough but eventually the spirit of the rule was apparently banned, much like 20 or so people at the time I was a member. These people were Discordian and not of like mind with the administrators or forum guides, and they were belittled for it. When they tried to respond in kind they were summarily banned. It continued like this for a time and I got sick of it, though the pranks the Discordians were pulling on the administrators were mildly amusing, Finally I referred the head admin and site owner as Adolf Hitler with delusions of Godhood and said a few other things best not said in polite company. I was of course banned and happy to have been so.
Anyway I digress. I was feeling generous and felt I should look up the site and see if it might be deserving of a more favorable review for my first blog entry for this site. So I spent an hour perusing the site before casting judgment. My first thoughts were that the site was not very visually appealing; the color scheme bland and apparently they must have hired a four-year-old to work on the layout. If not they should have, a four-year-old would have probably done a better job. I tried to forgive this and move on to the main issue I was concerned about, whether the respect rule was still enforced in a lopsided manner or had the site adopted some actual rules to keep the drama to a minimum.
I found that the forum had indeed changed. Before the site had been run like a high school student council; all the popular people and the teachers pets running the show and enforcing one set of rules for their friends and another for everyone else. Now it was run more like rabid wolves; they protect their own but nip, bite and generally run to ground everyone else. The site owners who also happen to be the admins seem to want no involvement in the site other than raking in what money they can from the many Google ads on the site and leave the running of things to those wolves. When I was a member the site boasted over 50,000 members, at the time this was written there were now 22,428 members and a whopping 6,988 who have been banned. People aren't just being banned, it's a mass exodus and people are staying away in droves.
For those who do remain, I can see why. It has the disturbing appeal of a train wreck or reality TV; you know it's going to be an ugly mess, but you just can't look away. Like reality TV you know there's going to be people hurt, betrayed and they'll probably be hurt and betrayed next week too, but you watch to see if they'll come back with some sort of revenge, if they'll finally say enough is enough, or whether they're really stupid or naive enough to believe that things there will change and get better.
My opinion of the site is such: Satan himself could not have imagined a more hellish way for me to spend an hour of my time than at Mystic Wicks. It is an hour of my life that I will never get back, and I deeply regret that. I would have much rather spent the time having a root canal without the aid or an anesthetic or something equally painful. I did get one small measure of satisfaction though: When I saw the number of people who had been banned form the site, I realized that I was banned before it became popular.
